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Worker Scarcity Pressures Productivity of Construction Industry and Accelerates Adoption of Industrial Models in Brazil, with Companies Incorporating Concepts of the Automotive Industry to Standardize Projects, Reduce Waste and Decrease Dependence on Skilled Labor in Traditional Sites.
The lack of qualified workers has returned to the center of concerns in the Brazilian construction industry and is already mobilizing sector entities in training initiatives to try to meet the projected demand for the coming years.
In this environment of pressure on productivity, cost, and deadlines, companies that rely less on artisanal processes gain operational advantages.
At Tenda, a developer focused on affordable housing, the response was to consolidate a productive model inspired by the Toyota system, adapting principles from the automotive industry to the construction site.
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The company claims to have structured this format since 2011, focusing on sequencing, standardization, and modularity, common characteristics in industrial lines.
Instead of concentrating multiple functions in generalist teams, the company began to divide the project into macro stages led by dedicated teams, each responsible for a specific activity throughout the project.
This way, the execution moves away from the more artisanal logic of conventional construction and approaches a structured industrial routine.
“What we did was separate the construction process into macro stages. Each of these stages works with dedicated teams. So, for example, we have a team that only works on the building structure with aluminum forms. Then, we have another team that installs the tiles, and another that takes care of the plumbing,” stated Luiz Mauricio de Garcia Paula, financial director and investor relations of Tenda.
This arrangement allows teams to repeat the same task across different units, reducing execution variability and increasing familiarity with each stage.
The practical effect, according to the company, is a combination of higher productivity, fewer operational errors, and reduced rework throughout the projects.
Standardization Transforms the Routine of Construction Sites
Another focus of the model is the pre-fabricated kits, described by the company as plug and play systems, which arrive ready at the site for installation in defined measurements for each unit.
This includes electrical and plumbing components, which are no longer prepared entirely on-site.
In a traditional construction site, a significant portion of this work requires cutting, adjusting, gluing, and manually organizing pieces, which consumes time and increases the margin for material waste.
In the standardized system, workers install previously sized components, shortening stages and reducing the need for improvisation during execution.
The change directly affects the profile of the labor required for the operation.
Although construction continues to demand training and coordination, the model tends to decrease dependence on highly specialized professionals for specific tasks that previously required greater adaptation on-site.
Reduction of Labor Cost in Construction
Tenda argues that standardization has a direct impact on the business’s cost structure, a sensitive point in projects aimed at low-income, where selling prices are more constrained.
According to the company, the labor cost in construction is 5 to 10 percentage points below the industry average.
“Our construction model suffers less in this labor scarcity scenario we are seeing in the country. This means that the weight of labor in our construction cost is 5 to 10 percentage points below the sector average,” said the executive.
In a segment where margin and scale usually go hand in hand, reducing exposure to labor costs can mean a greater ability to absorb inflationary pressures without disrupting the project’s budget.
Although the sector remains labor-intensive, more standardized models tend to reduce the relative weight of this component in the cost structure.
When the Productive Model Is Not Followed
The experience of Alea, a group operation focused on off-site construction, also served as a test of the limits of this system when execution deviates from the pattern designed by the company.
According to the company, the use of external contractors unfamiliar with the process reduced productivity and increased costs.
In this episode, construction costs were reported to be up to 30% above expectations, according to Tenda itself.
This data was used by the company as evidence that the efficiency of the model depends not only on the technology employed but also on strict adherence to procedures and the planned operational cadence.
The case helps explain why industrialization in construction is not limited to the adoption of ready-made parts or modern equipment.
Without training, repetition, and integration between stages, standardization loses strength and productivity gains can be neutralized by execution failures.
Industrialization of Construction Advances into Factories
In the industrialized arm of the group, the logic goes beyond the reorganization of teams on-site.
Alea was created to operate in off-site construction, where a significant portion of housing units is produced in a factory environment and then taken to the site only for assembly and finishing.
According to institutional information from the operation, the factory is located in Jaguariúna, in São Paulo’s interior, was inaugurated in 2021, and has the capacity to produce up to 10,000 houses per year.
The unit is presented by the company as one of the largest and most productive industrial structures in Latin America dedicated to housing construction.
The houses from Alea are standardized and produced using wood frame technology, a model where panels and structures leave the factory for subsequent assembly on-site.
By concentrating stages in a controlled environment, the company seeks to reduce dependence on heavy labor on-site and enhance control over deadlines, quality, and scale.
This movement speaks to a broader problem in the sector, which is trying to respond to the scarcity of professionals with gains in productivity, industrialization, and reorganization of the construction process.
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